The building that houses the Strand Bookstore at 826 Broadway was designated as a New York City landmark on Tuesday morning, following a contested process and fierce opposition from community members and the bookstore’s owner.
“What they [the LPC commissioners] fail to acknowledge is that there are real-world costs associated with landmarking: those costs can affect jobs, those costs can affect union jobs, and those costs can affect businesses like the Strand,” The Strand’s lawyer, Alexander Urbelis, told Curbed following the vote. “We need a life raft, we don’t need somebody to throw us a lead weight with a landmarking.”
